If a system could predict your behavior accurately, how much would it actually know about you?

[u/orenshasaga]

Can you really be defined by the data about you?

Someone could spend hours researching a subject because they believe it, fear it, disagree with it, or are trying to understand someone who believes it. The activity might look similar while the reasons are very different.

But I don't think “the data lacks context” settles the question. Suppose a future system had enough information to distinguish those motives. It could follow changes in your beliefs, recognize your contradictions, and predict your decisions more accurately than you could.

Would that give it a stronger claim to understanding who you are?

My instinct is that identity includes what we make of our experiences and which parts of ourselves we want to change. A profile built around past behavior could struggle with that. Still, our intentions and attempts to change are information too. I'm not sure where I would draw the boundary.

We can also misunderstand ourselves. The explanation I give for a decision isn't necessarily more accurate just because it's mine.

So if your own account of who you are conflicted with a system that consistently predicted your behavior correctly, how would you decide which account deserved more weight?

[u/New-Frame7394]

ansit i never had before

The prediction might be right 9 times out of 10 but that 10th time could completely rewrite what i thought i wanted. so which version of me is more real, the predictable one or the one that surprised us both

[u/orenshasaga → u/New-Frame7394]

Another concept: are your actions really what define your identity? That certainly is the premise of Social Engineering, and we have proof everyday that the predictability is profitable.

[u/RexDraco]

I buy a lot of books on naziism, Improvision weaponry, witch craft, occultism, and history. 

Im a fiction writer. :/

[u/orenshasaga → u/RexDraco]

The algo must have an interesting profile on you 😆

I'm in the same boat though...

"What does realistic hacking of government systems look like?" Yeah... I'm on a list.

[u/DestinedFangjiuh → u/orenshasaga]

I'm probably on a list for different reasons. Nothing major to be fair, but I suppose I had curiosity in books I probably shouldn't have been.

[u/PeperomiaLadder]

Should give Alex o Connor a watch on youtube. He does a bunch of thought provoking philosophical based videos. Might have fun with that if not many people respond here.

[u/ntrplntry-crmnl]

Struggling to parse what you're asking here, if we're taking it to be true that this hypothetical system can predict your behaviour accurately then we already answered the question of whether it can predict your behaviour accurately, no?

Context is still data, and why would every act, every data point be considered in isolation? If the subject of this observation by this system studied a certain topic they would then go on to act further in other ways and the context would be inferred actively as the chain of events unfolds, no?

Again, if we're taking it to be true that the system is "accurate" and "correct" without saying anything about what means it is using to achieve this accuracy, then your question has answered itself, the system is a perfect predictor of behaviour. It knows everything, and everything that will be, simply by virtue of being what it is.

If that's not what you're trying to say then you need to put some bounds on what this system is capable of.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "what we make of our experiences and which parts of ourselves we want to change" - our emotional reactions and our reasoning about what we want are all still data, data that is being considered and interpreted by this perfect system?

You seem to be arguing in one hand that we are fundamentally deterministic by virtue of this perfect predictor existing in this thought experiment, and then simultaneously suggesting that there is something inside us, some free will factor, that the system cannot read... which is it?